We can talk about the Greek gods without believing they exist.
Humans did not just appear 44,000 years ago. They evolved from other hominids as did their brain.
How many people who follow a particular religion do so as the result of a rational decision making process? Itâs more likely the result of having been raised to believe a certain religion is true. And when most people are asked to defend their âchoiceâ they often respond with, âhow else can you explain things?â Faith enters where ignorance leaves a space because itâs very hard for people to accept not knowing something. Thus, they prefer to believe something that may be false rather than believe nothing.
Or, that he doesnât judge us at all. Itâs not necessary that the same god who created the universe created us. He may have created a universe that had the potential to create us.
Itâs possible. Iâm just saying based on the evidence we have, and number of competing religious, that it seems that a being capable of creating us, would understand how crazy judging us based on faith would be.
He works in mysterious ways, not logical.
Thanks. I think that you articulate a common thought here. I believe that you probably have good reasons for this.
Iâll just say that this type of statement is one that Iâve found many people (not all and not necessarily you) to have made because they donât want to really address that âwillâ question. It is supremely uncomfortable to think that something else might have a claim on the direction of our lives.
This is why itâs a big question for me, and I put it before specific religion questions. IMHO itâs also one reason I personally think many people donât want to consider a belief in God rational. If you think belief de facto irrational and only for fools, it saves you from the more uncomfortable question of âwhat might it mean for me if otherwise?â.
Youâre making a probabilistic argument with this. The problem is that rational people can believe the same things as irrational people, but for different reasons and through a different decision process. It isnât irrational to hold that capitalism is better than communism simply because some jackass illiterates hold the same position. They might say it sounds better than being a âdamn dirty commieâ. You probably have given it serious thought to come to that conclusion.
This is why I said CAN be rational. Not âmust beâ.
It is unfortunate that people often fail at giving articulate reasons for their decision. That, however, is not an indication that the decision is always irrational. It does suggest they didnât consider it carefully.
Then again, some reasons are more persuasive to some people than others.
It is very hard for people to accept not knowing things. But we as humans operate with faith almost daily, and certainly throughout our lives. Regardless of whether we believe in God or not.
Faith and reason are not and never have been diametrically opposed concepts.
Every single one of us has beliefs of some sort or other that may be wrong. Every one. Itâs folly to think that âtheyâ are inferior for doing it when we all have these beliefs in our lives. This goes well beyond the topic of religion.
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Ok, thank you.
The craziness of it is subjective.
I can get on board with all of this. I have a much harder time with God created man and gave them free will and heâs all knowing and all good and all powerful but will totally let you burn for all eternity if you canât figure out the code that no one knows for sure. Is Ghandi in hell? He certainly was no Christian. Hitler was baptized Catholic. If he prayed for forgiveness and believes in God at the end is he in heaven? Eternal punishment seems to be the antithesis of being all good.
Who knows. But if Iâm burning for all eternity because I was created with free will and a mind which rejects the idea of something that canât possibly be proven thenâŠwell not much fairness to that game. And if thatâs the case burn me for all eternity in a lake of fire Iâm not bowing down to something I canât see who sounds like a terrorist. I donât believe in Pascalâs Wager.
I also donât think I have control over my lack of belief. I was Methodist for 18 years and bought in without ever attempting to think about it rationally. Itâs just what I was taught. Hey this is what we do. Same story for the vast majority of believers. It wasnât until I got older that I said âhey this really doesnât make a lick of sense does it?â And then the more you read and listen you realize pretty much no one agrees on what to believe anyways. My belief right now would be pure faking. Iâm not going to spend the rest of my life faking belief just on the off chance God isnât smart enough to catch that and he sends me to heaven.
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But do we base every major decision on it?
Faith told us Iraq had wmds and look what that got us.
Of course not. âLogicâ has also told us a lot of things that got us into deep shit too though. One of several points I have been trying to articulate is that âfaithâ and âreasonâ in fact can work together under the aegis of a rational belief. Just because they are inadequately applied by some does not mean they must be opposites and enemies.
Youâre saying something completely different from me. Iâm not sure if you didnât follow my point or if youâre just being contrary for the sake of it. I donât feel the things youâve said respond directly.
I donât have a problem with irrational belief. Itâs when someone fails to recognize their belief is irrational and expects others to live their lives according to that belief.
When someone says the Bible says X so we canât do something, thatâs a problem. How about that person doesnât do it and lets others deal with god, or not, on their own.
Like abortion; how can we let the belief that a zygote has a soul enter the discussion? It canât be proven and not even scripture is clear.
Also, with regard to everyone using faith everyday, is it faith or playing the odds? Making decisions based on probability, like buying lottery tickets, is not faith. Faith would be buying a ticket and believing you will win.
Ok, so these donât seem to address the concept I am getting at.
Hereâs the question: can faith be rational? I.e. can belief in a God be rational? Not âdo I believe in Godâ. Not âdoes everyone who believes in God do so rationallyâ. As previously mentioned, different people can hold the same thought due to rational or irrational decisions. And not, " belief in specific religion X, Y, or Z".
My answer to that question is yes. My answer is yes because I hold that the very popular notion that âreasonâ or âlogicâ is the innate opposite of faith is wrong, and a faulty characterization.
Probability inherently involves some faith that a personâs decision will be correct. You are making decisions in the presence of incomplete information, with the belief that you will ultimately be correct. The only way around this is to posit that purely deductive decisions are the only way to make a rational model. In that case all humans are irrational in their daily lives.
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Ultimately almost everyone relies on faith just to live their life. Most people assume or take for granted that their senses provide at least somewhat accurate information about âreality.â How do we know the person we exchange âI love youâ with isnât just some figment of a very lonely disembodied singular will (our own) in some unimaginably bizarre universe? That your entire view of the universe isnât completely illusionary. In order to even put your brain to the test, and to even judge its accuracy, you must use the very same brain whose reliability is in question.
If it is likely that one day weâll be able to manipulate the brain in such a way as to be able to create perfect illusions of experiencesâŠWho is to say that isnât happening this second. Youâd never know.
What about love and FAITHfulness?
How about going into a burning building to help a stranger? Feeding the poor at a soup line? Did empiricism put them there? No. Most likely itâs a feeling that we DO have some kind of moral obligation to help. Even if we donât want to admit it. Not some kind of cold social calculation like âwell, if I want to be fed in the chance that I transform into some starving developing world, I better donate my money and time to this Christian organization teaching sustainable farming to poor malnourished people.â
Is there nothing that is evil in its own right? Not just something that would be darn inconvenient for you, so letâs make a social contract! Nothing at all? Not one thing?â âEuthanizing the intractable poor? Not my thing, but your mileage may vary.â If so, that thing âevilâ is a faith based belief.
Then what if youâre of some powerful family, people, nation, or whatever that can take from the weaker while maintaining a truce with those on your level? The chances of being punished by the weak being minuscule?
To me faith is clearly a nearly universal tool. Religion is pretty much universal. One of the main features/tools we look at every time we want to understand a civilization.
Is it irrational to be religious? I mean if it boils down to being nothing more than some naturally selected instinctual way to organize and provide hierarchy for building and providing order in human societies to a point where we could have the leisure time to even do serious science, isnât that a massively functional service?
Is it irrational for chimps to organize troops the way they do, by some pre-disposition, instead of starting constitutional and representative democracies?
What about our own predispositions as humans in order to lay the foundation for human civilization rivaling that of the chimp? And how irrational can it be if there are, in addition, at least reasonable arguments for the existence of, say, God? Perhaps not through empiricism. Still there are respectable logical arguments.
Hey now this is America. Why euthanize them when we can profit off them?!
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And if our faith is misplaced? Ultimately it wonât matter as a cold dumb universe doesnât care we didnât choose to pretend weâre Planet Vulcan. In godless universe without moral obligations and duties we can order human society anyway we want. Even by faith.
Soylent green is people!
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Word. I salute your honesty.
I just feel we can move beyond âI donât knowâ at some point. And if you do ponder it, I will respect any conclusions you draw.
I appreciate the respect you have shown me.
To answer your question. I donât believe in ânothingâ. Nothing doesnât exist, literally. Hence, itâs not possible for anything to be if there is nothing.
I am what is called a duelist, that all that exists physically exists in two states, indivisible. There is a physical state and the laws that govern the physical. Those laws are metaphysical.
The metaphysical is more real, more actual and unchanging. Even in the absence of physical existence, the actual metaphysical reality never changes.
Thatâs how I see the world.
I will leave it at Einstien. Matter breaks down into energy, and energy breaks down to information. And the process also works in reverse equally. Information becomes energy and energy becomes matter. Time can be a part of the process but is not necessary. This is the General Theory of Relativity in a nutshell.